How panicked drivers are making North Texas gas shortages worse

Written by Jeff Mosier at Dallas News

Texas is the energy capital of the country, both in terms of crude oil production and refining that into different types of fuel such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products. Several refineries shut down as a precaution before Harvey made landfall in southeast Texas coast on Friday night as a category 4 hurricane. In the following days, as the storm caused widespread flooding, more inland refineries stopped operations. As of late Wednesday, more than a fifth of the nation’s refining capacity — including two of the country’s largest oil refineries — was out of commission as oil companies battled flooding.